What a Stripper Makes

In a tough economy, jobs are tight now. I know, I have been looking for a job for more than a year now. I wasn't always unemployed though. For more than five years I worked as an exotic dancer -- or better known as a stripper. When I first began working I transitioned from being a waitress in the club. Easy money comes and goes, but it is what you know that helps you live the best way. To this day, I wouldn't return to be a dancer again.

Working in booming night club was easy. It is the best job, for the money I earned, that I have ever had. Strippers are paid tips when dancing on the stage, and by the individual dance. Talking to the customers and selling your time as a stripper is the real work. Usually I could count how many dances I did in a night and count my earnings to match. On an average of twenty dollars a dance, I would normally take home a few hundred or at good times more than a thousand a night. All dancers are contractors for the club they work, so no one keeps track of the amount you earn. That's what made the job difficult too.

I first danced at the age of 19. I started out in a town in Texas, and then moved with friends out to Las Vegas. At the time I didn't know much about this business and I had been encouraged to look for this kind of work from a friend who became a boyfriend. While we lived together for about 6 months, he had already decided that he wanted to be paid all of my earnings in that time. We eventually broke up, and I continued to dance for years later. Eventually I would get around to working in other states as well, with a total of over 60 clubs.

When I look back I realize that I missed normal things in life. Like completing college during this time. Which I am still trying to finish. In fact I didn't have any way to claim the money I earned in the first few years. I hadn't saved any either. A lot of my spending was trying to maintain myself. I spent more than average time at the gym; I tanned and always kept fake nails. The clothing dancers wear can be expensive also. I remember spending thousands of dollars on just clothes to work in, within a few months of time. The mystic behind what felt like glamour soon became a haunting humiliation to me. I felt lonelier than I ever had in life. The feeling of competing against other woman on the basis of appearances was shattering to my self-esteem.

All night long working in a smoke filled building with dark lighting and loud music made me sleep all day. Before I was 21 I did not drink. Afterward, is a different story. In the first year I went through a shock of having so much money, and meeting so many people. It was all a bit confusing to me. I stayed pessimistic and tried to stay focused on actual work, if it is at all possible in this environment.

While a job like this is considered working in the sex industry, I did not look at it that way. I kept regular hours working 40 or more in a week. I didn't want to make friends in those clubs. I was too afraid to. I would just dress in the dressing room and stay out on the floor bouncing table to table between dancing on stage. I watched other dancers doing their stage dancing and learned to make my own moves. Ignoring what was going on around me made me feel safe.

It has been more than four years since I have danced now. I have my own reasons why I will not do it again. That doesn't stop me from wanting that kind of income though. My focus in life now is based largely on my child and my education. I am a single mother. I found that I like to write. Learning about journalism and communication is exciting for me. That's why I wanted to share this with Associated Content and its fans.